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Israel’s Internal Security Agency (the “Shin Bet”) has the authority to reject the hiring of “politically active” teachers or dismiss those already working in Arab schools, according to a report published in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth last weekend. According to the article, a former official at the Israeli Ministry of Education, Emmanuel Koplovich, related how the Shin Bet has rejected the appointment of many qualified teachers.

Illustration: Yedioth Ahronoth

During his tenure at the Shin Bet, the organization “was involved in everything regarding recruitment for education positions,” confirmed former head of the agency, Knesset member Yaakov Perry. “It is still active in Arab schools to this day.”

The newspaper article revealed that the Shin Bet targets Arab teachers with the full cooperation of the ministry which doesn’t inform the teachers why they were dismissed or not accepted for a position. It also revealed that some of the teachers were not themselves involved in any political activity, but were rejected or laid off because of the political activism of one of their relatives.

According to the report, information about Arab teachers and principals has been circulated among different government institutions, mainly the education ministry and the Prime Minister’s office. The Director of Adalah – the Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Attorney Hassan Jabareen, said that the Shin Bet’s interference in the recruitment and dismissal of Arab teachers and principals has been known for a long time in the Arab community. Such actions reiterate the hostility of the Israeli Education Ministry towards the country’s Arab-Palestinian citizens, who make up a fifth of the country’s population.